50 Things To Do Before Leaving For A Trip, with just a few things I always check before leaving house for a trip (except the obvious things):
1. Take a shower in the morning 2. Create a new expenses report 3. Take foreign coins 4. Take foreign charging adapters if needed
5. Take the HDMI cable 6. Charge the tooth brusher 7. Charge the razor, take the blades 8. Charge the headphones 9. Charge the external power bank 10. Charge the Bluetooth keyboard 11. Charge the laptop fully 12. Check weather forecast 13. Check car sharing services (Lyft, Bolt)
14. Check hotel amenities (gym, sauna) where I'm staying 15. Check the distance and directions from airport to hotel 16. Check umbrella 17. Check sunglasses 18. Check the costs of regular expenses abroad (numbeo.com) 19. Save travel guides about the place/country
20. Send money to my travelling bank account 21. Clean the laptop 22. Update the laptop OS and software 23. Clean the phone screen 24. Choose coffee shops to work from 25. Check foreign power plugs and sockets (power-plugs-sockets.com) 26. Set up a "vacation mode" for the gym
27. Send Google Maps direction to the phone 28. Check currency exchange rate and cash 29. Check sun cream and sunglasses 30. Sync Dropbox 31. Check pre-paid Data SIM cards (prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com) 32. Download music for offline listening 33. Download movies for offline watching
34. Backup talks on large drive (run over night) 35. Install local country taxi app 36. Take duty-free bags just in case 37. Take print-outs with me (ESTA + hotel confirmation) 38. Take workshop materials and stickers 39. Check weather forecast and collect clothing
40. Check sport shoes + weightlifting/running gear 41. Check my set for cleaning shoes 42. Take double audio plug with me 43. Take HDMI and Ethernet cables 44. Take a newspaper/book with me 45. Take Strepsils, vitamins, medication, tooth paste, small shaving foam
46. Get presents for friends and relatives 47. Get extra gifts just in case 48. Take fruit along to the journey 49. Save AirBnB/Hotel address in a text editor/on the phone 50. Print out train tickets or boarding passes 51. Get the haircut done ahead of time
52. Take Covid-19 tests 53. Set up an alarm on the phone 54. Check if the train/flight is delayed 55. Take out trash 56. Water flowers 57. Leave a bouquet of flowers before leaving
π Design inspiration! Where do you find interesting websites? Below is the list of websites that I frequently visit to explore some unusual designs for inspiration:
β Minimal design (httpster.net/2022/nov/) curated by Dominic Whittle and Tom Fitzgerald at Guvnor,
π Design KPIs. We often think that design is subjective, a matter of taste or preference. It doesn't have to be. We should be able to measure how well a particular design solves a particular problem. That's why recently I started setting up Design KPIs for every project.
These design KPIs inform, shape and restrict design decisions. They also tend to eliminate personal biases and remove personal preferences out of equation. This is what @gerrymcgovern calls βevidence-based designβ. We measure and we improve usability, testing over time.
As an example, here's how the KPIs could look like:
β Accuracy of data in forms β 100%
β Time to complete forms < 35s
β Time to relevance in search < 30s
β Frequency of errors < 3 / visit
β Error recovery speed < 7s